1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a collection container with transport pump for pumping liquids containing production residues such as, for instance, chips, coolant and lubricant, in accordance with the preamble to claim 1.
Machining residues such as are produced, for instance, in the machining industries must be removed from the machine, together with the coolant or lubricant used there, in order to separate the chips from the liquid elsewhere. For this, the mixture is pumped or drawn through pipelines.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the systems known up to now, the comminuted chips, as for instance in EP 518 095, are collected in a collection container having a slight inclination, so that the chips are conveyed by the flow of the fluid to the pump, which is arranged at the lowest point. Another known variant consists of a funnel-shaped container with relatively steep walls, so that the chips pass by gravity into the pump, which is arranged at the lowest point. The known collecting containers have been found to have the disadvantage that either the transport of the chips taken place only when there is only a slight volume of feed stream or the containers have too great a structural height.
From EP 0 269 124 a highly consistent tower of material is known which has the features contained in the preamble to the main claim. In that device, scraper plates are arranged on the radically extending rake arms, which plates bring the material to be removed by pumps arranged below the floor of the container together on a circular line around the center of the circular-cylindrical collection container. In this known device, there is the danger, due to the development of the rake arm, that larger particles will become jammed below the scraper. Furthermore, a large structural height is necessary due to the arrangement of the pumps below the floor of the collection container.
French A-2 176 618 discloses a device for the dosaging of granulate in which rake arms are present in a cylindrical collection container they conducting the material lying on the bottom of the container to openings arranged on its outer circumference. The rake arms have an inner rake-arm section with a curved transport surface and an outer rake-arm section with a straight transport surface.
Japanese A 62 10 198 discloses a device for drawing coolant which contains cutting ships out of a collection container. For this purpose a suction pipe which is connected at its other end with a corresponding separator for separating the coolant from the chips extends into the collection container. In addition, a corresponding vacuum suction device is provided.